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USB-Killer5

It sounds like something out of a B-grade Hollywood plot — a wink bulldoze that y'all plug into a reckoner and is capable of destroying it within seconds. Final year, hacker Dark Purple disclosed a USB wink drive designed to fry a modernistic arrangement equally soon every bit you plug it in. The drive works by discharging -220V through the USB port.

The exact details on how the drive functioned weren't immediately released. But in that location's at present a Hong Kong-based visitor selling a USB Kill Drive 2.0 for just $50. Here'southward how the company describes the product:

The USB Kill ii.0 is a testing device created to test USB ports against ability surge attacks. The USB Kill 2.0 tests your device'southward resistance against this attack. The USB Impale collects power from the USB power lines (5V, 1 – 3A) until it reaches ~ -240V, upon which it discharges the stored voltage into the USB information lines.

This charge / discharge bike is very rapid and happens multiple times per second.
The process of rapid discharging volition continue while the device is plugged in, or the device tin can no longer belch – that is, the circuit in the host machine is broken.

The integrated nature of mod SoCs ways that blasting the USB controller with -200V the way this drive does volition typically crusade astringent damage, up to and including destroying the SoC. While modern motherboards include overcurrent protection, this typically protects against positive voltage. (The departure between positive and negative voltage is a reference to the voltage relative to the ground). If the voltage source is connected to ground by a "-" terminal, the voltage source is positive. If it connects via the "+" concluding, the voltage source is negative.

The company likewise plans to sell a USB Impale Tester Shield, which information technology claims will forbid both the USB Impale device from operation and protect user information from certain kinds of snooping or intrusion if you lot hook up to an unknown charging station or other device. This kind of intrusion is known as "juice jacking," though it'due south not clear if this attack vector has been widely used in the real earth. There'southward not much to say about the Kill Tester Shield at the moment — all of the links on the website to the actual product are non-functional equally of this writing. Caveat Emptor is good advice in a state of affairs like this.

usb-killer-small

It looks innocent. It isn't.

The larger question, I call up, is whether devices similar this pose a threat to the average consumer. Right at present, I think they don't. At $5, it's easy to imagine someone ordering these in bulk and scattering them just to screw with people in general. At $50 each, you probably aren't going to stumble over a tiny block of death.

At the same time, however, studies accept shown that up to 50% of people will cheerfully plug in a USB drive they found on the ground without taking precautions for what kind of data or malware might be on the drive. If the USB Impale 2.0 is really shipping in volume, it'south probably a proficient idea to revisit that tendency — or at least continue an old computer around for testing.

Now read: How USB charging works, or how to avert blowing upward your smartphone